by Barbara Kyle
Sydenham hurried after her, grabbing her arm to stop her. “My house is nearby. There is no need for your horse. I’ll send a servant back to fetch it.”
“But I must see someone first.”
“The Spaniard?”
Her mouth fell open. Did this man know everything about her? “I cannot leave without speaking to him.” She shrugged off his hand and started for the stable.
The stable door burst open. Carlos was pushed outside so violently he staggered for balance, blood trickling from his lower lip. Isabel froze. Three men stomped after him, and she realized they were the rough-faced ones she’d seen earlier in the inn.
When Carlos saw Sydenham, shock swept his face. “You.” Then, in a roar, “My land!” He lunged at Sydenham, his hand instinctively swiping for his sword. But the sword had been taken away, and Carlos was grappled from behind by two of the three men and wrestled to his knees, his arms twisted up behind his back. The third man, the bald one, whipped out a dagger and held it to Carlos’s throat, then looked back at Sydenham as though for instructions. It was clear they were his henchmen.
“No!” Isabel cried. She lurched toward Carlos. Sydenham restrained her. “Tell them to let him go!” she said. “He is with me! ”
Sydenham shook his head sadly. “I had hoped to spare you this distress. The fact is, mistress, it’s from this man above all that you need protection.”
“You are misinformed, sir. This man has shown me nothing but loyalty. Now tell your—”
“He is Carlos Valverde, a Spanish mercenary, correct? And he has cravenly ensnared your trust.”
“Que diablos!” Carlos cried. He was wildly trying to struggle to his feet but the two henchmen held him on his knees. Sydenham nodded to the bald man, who lifted his booted foot and plowed it into Carlos’s belly. Carlos grunted in pain and doubled over. Isabel gasped and cried, “No!” The bald man cracked his knee up into Carlos’s face. Carlos’s head snapped back, blood gushing from his nose.
“Stop!” Isabel screamed.
Sydenham took hold of her more firmly. “What do you really know of this brute? Of the murders he’s committed?”
Carlos’s groans of pain made her frantic, but she struggled to stay calm, to make Sydenham understand. Only he could call off his men. “I know he has done some reckless things,” she said. “Sometimes, killing can be justified.”
“Find justification for this if you can. The Spaniard has been hired to kill your father.”
A cold stone dropped to the pit of Isabel’s stomach.
Sydenham sighed heavily. “Five days ago,” he explained, “I went to Colchester jail to see what might be done for your father. I arrived too late. Thornleigh had just been transferred to London. And there had been a riot in which most of the prisoners had escaped, including Valverde. But I did speak to the sheriff. He told me that the previous night Valverde had made an attempt on your father’s life. The assault was foiled, and in the ensuing disturbance both Valverde and your father were chained in the dungeon. In the morning, your father was taken to London. Then the riot occurred and there was great disorder in the aftermath. However, the sheriff was able to ascertain, from statements drawn from some recaptured prisoners, that Valverde’s assault on Thornleigh had been paid for. That’s right, mistress. He is an assassin, hired to murder your father.”
Isabel slowly turned to Carlos. His head, fallen forward, lolled between the legs of the henchmen who held him on his knees. The cobbles before him were speckled red with the blood dripping from his nose.
“Iss-bel!”
She turned toward the high, singing voice. The child, Lizzy, had romped out of the inn, but she stopped suddenly and stared at Carlos, her eyes wide. With a glance at Isabel she seemed to realize that Isabel was not in the mood to play, and ran back inside.
Sydenham went on. “Which brings me to the real reason I feel so personally implicated in this tragedy, mistress. It pains me more than I can say to have to tell you this, but …” He took a bracing breath. “I have come to the disturbing conclusion that the order for the assassination came from Lady Maud Grenville. She sent her servant to the jail to commission Valverde. You see, she is quite unbalanced by the death of her husband. You experienced it yourself that day in the graveyard—the irrational depth of her enmity. And I can think of no other person who would wish your father dead. Can you?”
Isabel was staring at Carlos.
Sydenham said, very quietly, “This man has been using you in the hope of reaching your father, to murder him. This is the man you must fear.”
Her voice struggled out feebly. “No. He … we …”
“Dear lady,” Sydenham said, gently taking her hand, “if you are trying to convince yourself that this brute has undergone some miraculous change of heart, it will only bring you more grief. He is pledged to murder. For profit. Whatever you have been able to pay him, Lady Grenville will have promised him tenfold. Besides, I know how it is with mercenaries. They never change sides in a confrontation. It is a kind of honor with them. Indeed, it is their only honor.”
Isabel’s voice failed her. She shook her head in stiff jerks of denial.
“I see you are loath to believe the worst of him. Well, perhaps he can convince you.” He nodded to the bald man, who grappled Carlos’s bloody chin and jerked his head up.
Sydenham stepped toward Carlos. “Tell this lady the commission you accepted at Colchester jail.”
Through his pain, Carlos’s eyes slowly focused on Isabel.
“Carlos?” She heard the tremor in her voice. “What he’s saying, it’s all lies … isn’t it?”
The bald man jerked Carlos’s head as if to shake an answer out.
Isabel cried, “Let him speak!” Then quietly, hopefully, “Carlos?”
His eyes flicked from Isabel to Sydenham, then back to Isabel.
She felt his silence like thick hands around her neck, slowly squeezing. “Tell me it’s a lie!”
“Isabel, that was before I—” He winced as the other henchmen wrenched his arms higher.
“You don’t deny it,” she said in horror. “Oh dear God …”
Carlos struggled to stand. He made it to his feet. One of the men holding him kicked his foot out from under him and Carlos collapsed to his knees again and the henchmen snapped back his arms. The bald man punched his jaw. Carlos’s head rocked back and he groaned at the pain, then cried out, “Isabel!”
Sydenham took control. “Take this felon to Newgate prison,” he ordered his men. He slid his arm around Isabel’s waist. “Come home with me.” Supporting her, he led her out the gate.
They yanked him to his feet and twisted him around. He wrenched to get free. The bald man rammed an elbow into his back. The other two began to haul him toward the stable. He dug in his heels. They pried him from the spot and dragged him to the stable doorway. He kicked out a leg and slammed it stiff against the door jamb. The bald man told the other two to hold him up, then came around to Carlos’s front and plowed a fist into his belly. Carlos buckled and they let him fall to the ground. They grappled his feet and dragged him through the stable doorway.
They slung him into the straw beside Isabel’s horse. He lay writhing, clutching his stomach, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. They stood over him, murder in their eyes. He managed to say faintly, between heaves to catch his breath, his gut on fire, “He told you … Newgate.”
The bald man sneered. “He told us something else before we come here, mate.” He looked at the other two. “Resisting lawful arrest, right lads?” Then, back at Carlos, “My master says resisting arrest be a capital offense. And if there be one thing my master do know,” he said as he reached for a pitchfork, “it’s the bleedin’ law.”
He hefted the pitchfork and motioned to the other two. As they moved into position on either side of Carlos, he lunged for one man’s legs, wrapped his arms around him and brought him down. They wrestled on the floor, Carlos on top. The bald man kicked Carlos in the ribs. Carlos r
ecoiled in agony. The other two men grabbed him and rolled him onto his stomach, spread-eagled, and pinned him down by standing on his arms. Carlos groaned, the pain excruciating. From the corner of his eye he saw the bald man raise the pitchfork. He struggled frantically against the impossible weights. The pitchfork stilled for its descent, positioned above his shoulder blades.
“There he is!” a woman’s voice shrilled.
Carlos heard many feet pounding in. The men standing on his arms staggered backward amid scuffling and curses. Carlos rolled over. He stared up in wonder. There was a brawl all around him. The bearded Captain Ross had led the attack. Ross had disarmed the bald man of the pitchfork, and seven of his royalist soldiers were tearing into Sydenham’s three men. The soldiers quickly prevailed. A woman hung back at the doorway—the chambermaid.
“Now get out, you whoreson dogs!” Ross growled, brandishing the pitchfork. “Or me men’ll slice your throats and leave you in the ditch as the first work of the rebels!”
Sydenham’s men stumbled for the door and fled.
Ross ordered his soldiers back inside the inn. They left, but the chambermaid came to Ross’s side. Together they watched Carlos struggle to his feet, clutching his bruised stomach. “I don’t know what you’ve done, Spaniard,” Ross said gruffly, “and I don’t want to know. But I’m telling you, get out of London now. That high and mighty gent what set his curs on you is the Queen’s man. I won’t be seen in company with you.”
Carlos spat blood and wiped more of it from his chin. He kicked at the straw, searching for his sword. When Sydenham’s men had first come upon him they had tossed it somewhere here. But he couldn’t find it. He turned to Ross. “Give me a weapon,” he said weakly.
Ross snorted. “Christ, why not just ask for me head on a platter! Get out, I tell you. Now.”
Carlos hobbled toward Isabel’s mare. He’d saddled her before the attack. He untethered her and, wincing, mounted her. He looked down at Ross. “Let me have some money.”
Ross rolled his eyes to heaven.
The chambermaid nudged Ross. “Aw, give him a bit, Captain.” She nuzzled closer. “Look at him. Like Lizzy said, they’ve half killed him.”
Ross’s eyes narrowed on Carlos. “What happened to the pile you took off me at cards last night?”
“Inside, in my room. It’s yours.”
Ross considered this. “Right. Here,” he said, tossing up a gold sovereign.
Carlos caught the coin. He nosed the mare around and reined her toward the door.
“Spaniard,” Ross said as he wrapped his arm around the chambermaid. “Good luck.”
25
Haven
At midnight, falling snow eddied fretfully in the wind above the small Kentish town of Malling, as though nervous about coming to rest on ground where royalist troops were camped. It gusted around the towers of the castle and the former Benedictine nunnery, and swirled above the market square where campfires flickered, until finally, snared by alley walls between the church and the thatched houses, and by bare trees near sheds and pigsties, it collapsed in ragged drifts. In all these shelters—castle, church, houses, and sheds—the Queen’s officers, horsemen, and foot soldiers were settled for the night.
Lord Abergavenny, commander of the Kentish royal forces, tramped over the snow, finishing his tour of the sentries’ posts, his pace brisk against the cold. He reached the town’s farthest watch fire, and the half-frozen sentry, stomping for warmth beside the flames, straightened when he saw the commander approach. Abergavenny gave him a curt nod.
“All’s well?”
“Aye, my lord.”
Both men gazed out at the black, silent countryside and the blacker forest beyond. An owl hooted. Near a tent a tethered horse’s hoof clopped on the hard ground. Then, apart from the wind rattling the forest’s bare branches like an army of chattering teeth, all was quiet.
Almost too quiet. Even the snow had stopped falling.
Though far from satisfied, Abergavenny had to acknowledge the proof of silence. He nodded goodnight to the sentry and started back toward the castle. He had left Southwell, the sheriff, sound asleep there, sated from his supper and mulled wine. Southwell was his relative—had married Abergavenny’s niece—but Abergavenny found the man’s indifference rankling. Southwell seemed incapable of understanding their precarious position. Not ten miles to their north Wyatt lay snug inside Rochester with his host—over three thousand men, at latest report, and a French-led army already marching down from Scotland. Abergavenny expected Wyatt to attack Malling at any moment. And what fight could the pitiful company here put up? Abergavenny and Southwell between them had been able to attract a mere six hundred men. Six hundred—from all of Kent! And desertions increased daily. Abergavenny’s sentries posted at every point around the town’s edge were as much to keep his own troops in as to keep Wyatt’s out.
Up the street he could see the three watch fires in the market square. He passed an alehouse alley where a skinny dog, snuffling through a rubbish heap, cringed and watched him until he went by.
Abergavenny strode through the square. A dozen soldiers were keeping watch. Another fifty or so, the overflow from the crowded billets, were scattered among the roofed stalls along the market periphery, curled up asleep. Abergavenny smelled bacon and heard it sizzling on a stick over one of the fires. He was aware of the sentries’ eyes on him. He did not have to even glance at them to know the expressions on those faces—the sullen, grudging looks. Most of these men wanted only to be at home tucked up beside their warm wives. They were not soldiers. They were yeomen, tenant farmers, laborers, craftsmen. He’d promised them payment by Candlemas. He groaned to himself. Candlemas was only three days away. God only knew where he was going to find the money, for he had inherited an estate much encumbered by his father’s debts; loyalty to the Crown, and to the Queen’s largesse, was his only hope for the future. Yet pay them he must if he was to keep these men from skulking back to their hearths.
He shook his head glumly. England had no standing army, not like France. And, apart from large ordnance, she had no modern armaments either; almost a century and a half after Agincourt, longbows and pikes were still the order of the day. England was backward, Abergavenny grimly admitted that. His six hundred raw recruits here could be cut to bits in moments by a dozen mounted landsknechts, the famous Continental mercenaries. And his clutch of inexperienced young officers—in their posts through high birth, not ability—would be able to do little more than helplessly watch the slaughter. It was true that Wyatt’s force would be equally ill-trained and ill-equipped, but that was small consolation to a commander of discontented farmers, many of whom, he knew, had no quarrel with Wyatt’s cause to keep Spanish domination at bay.
He trudged on, finally breaking clear of the sullen stares in the marketplace, and headed up toward the castle. He took some comfort in the orders from Whitehall that had been delivered at supper: he was to march to Gravesend tomorrow. Good. The past three days, stuck here in Malling, had been three days too many. His men were restless. He would be glad to be moving.
A shout broke in on his thoughts. He halted. More shouts arose and Abergavenny heard a cry of “Treason!” He turned. The excited voices came from just beyond the market square. He started back down the street on the run.
“We are betrayed!” a voice wailed from a window.
In the square, soldiers were scrambling out of stalls, half asleep, frightened, rummaging for weapons. House doors banged open. Partially-dressed lieutenants and townsmen spilled out into the square. Dogs barked. There was confusion everywhere.
The shouting was loudest near the middle watch fire where the words “enemy!” and “spy!” peaked above the edgy voices. Abergavenny pushed his way through the bodies toward the fire. By the flames, two soldiers held a man hostage between them. A serving man, Abergavenny judged by the fellow’s clothing, and one who had been riding long and hard, it appeared, for his hooded sheepskin coat was stiff with frozen snow
and his breeches were hardened mud up to the knees. But he stood grim-faced and composed, warily eyeing the hostile faces surrounding him. He was tall, and looked strong, especially between the two jumpy young men grappling him. Behind him, a boy held the reins of the mount that the captive had apparently ridden in on, a mud-spattered bay mare, its head hanging.
“Who is this?” Abergavenny demanded.
There was a clamor of replies:
“Won’t say. Claims he’ll talk only to you, my lord.”
“He’s Wyatt’s spy!”
“Aye! Sneaking in on us in the dark!”
Above the voices, Abergavenny glanced angrily at one of his lieutenants, a bullnecked man who was still buckling on his sword. The lieutenant took the commander’s cue and shouted for silence. The cacophony hushed.
Abergavenny approached the captive. In the twitching firelight, the man’s gray eyes locked on his own. His lower lip and one nostril, Abergavenny noted, were crusted with dried blood, and there was a livid yellow-purple bruise on his eyebrow. “Who are you?”
“I bring news,” the captive said. “An enemy force lies eight miles west.”
There were widespread whispers, some of dismay, some of mistrust. “A foreigner,” someone grumbled. “Listen to the way he talks.”
“What’s your name?” Abergavenny asked.
“Valverde.”
More grumbling: “What’s that, Spanish?” and “Bloody foreigner, right enough!”
Abergavenny ignored his men’s comments. He spoke only to the suspect. “An enemy force? You mean Sir Henry Isley’s?”
The man nodded.
“I’ve already had scouts’ reports about Isley,” Abergavenny said dismissively. “His wild little band has been raiding around Sevenoaks.” He added loudly for the benefit of the more fearful among his men, “Brigands, that’s all.”
“More than a band,” the captive said. “Five hundred strong, at least. I saw from a hill.”
Abergavenny was shocked by the number. He regarded the suspect with narrowed eyes. “Have you been sent with this message from one of Her Majesty’s commanders?”